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Has Walker's call for unity already been betrayed by his staff? A letter from Callen Harty on Ciara Matthews

Just three days after Walker's noble call for cooperation and unity, his communications director, Ciara Matthews is already tweeting her own tune, issuing a spiteful, pointless jab that accomplished nothing beyond betraying the sense of cooperation Scott Walker claims the next stage of his administration will bring. Callen Harty, whose guest posts on MoD never fail to inform and inspire, immediately called this hypocritical move to the governor's attention, with this beautifully restrained and civil open letter, which he published first on his blog, A Single Bluebird, and shares with permission below. If you're unfamiliar with the controversy surrounding Walker's choice of a communications director, you might look here and here for some context (and here and here for more salacious context).

8 June 2012

Dear Governor Walker

Here is it, only three days after you survived the recall election
and three days after you stood in front of your supporters and media and
told all of Wisconsin that you wanted to put the past behind us and
work with Democrats to create jobs and move Wisconsin forward. Your
words sounded great and for those of us who voted for Mayor Barrett what
you said was the kind of balm that can sometimes help ease the pain of a
stinging loss in a hard-fought election.

You have said in other interviews that you have been humbled and
that you have learned some lessons even as difficult as this last year
has been. You said that you would have done things differently and that
you would have brought others to the table and you would have been more
inclusive. A politician who can admit that they were wrong and that
they have learned lessons from their mistakes is a rare thing to see in
our country. If it is not just idle words I applaud you for it.

You have also said that you want to meet with Democrats, perhaps
have some brats and beers together, and begin the difficult task of
trying to piece back together the ripped fabric of the state we all love
so much. Again, unless this is empty rhetoric, I can appreciate your
willlingness to do this. I would suggest that you also open yourself to
the citizens of the state and include more of us in your consideration
as well. You have made only rare appearances at events where anyone
could go and the person who runs a state like Wisconsin really should be
more accessible to the people. You represent us and need to be able to
hear our concerns.

All of these things you have said are good. But it is meaningless
if the people around you don’t follow your example Your supporters
created signs that said “Stand With Walker” to show support during the
recall election period. These people need to stand with you now and
follow the leader and put divisiveness, anger, and other negative
feelings behind them. A true leader would not allow his followers to
detract from his message of cooperation and reconciliation. This is why
I was surprised and upset to see that your Communications Director,
Ciara Matthews, tweeted a very harsh message to Democrats (and I presume
independents and Republicans who did not support you in this election).

I would be surprised if you haven’t seen it yet, as it is
definitely making the rounds. It read, “No leg. session until 2013 =
symbolic state senate majority. Your one seat accomplishes zero. Just
like your recall efforts.” This kind of gloating and disrespectful
behavior from a key player in your administration is unacceptable and
juvenile behavior that should not and cannot be tolerated. I might
expect it from a neighbor who doesn’t like my politics, but not from one
of your hired employees. I presume Ms. Matthews is an adult, but based
on the tone of this tweet from someone whose job is communications I question her maturity and her qualifications for such a position.

As the Governor, as the man who is telling Wisconsin that you want
us all to move on and work together, you need to talk to Ms. Matthews
and she needs to make a public apology. As the chief executive of this
state you should also release a statement acknowledging that this kind
of behavior is unacceptable to you and that you truly do want to move
past this kind of behavior and will not tolerate it. If you do not, all
the rest of what you have said this week will be seen as empty and
meaningless words.

The real question here is whether Scott Walker feels the same as Ms Matthews. Sometimes employee comments reflect the true sentiment of their leader. From what I have seen of Scott Walker, he is a passive-aggressive person. This type of person rarely tells you the truth, instead they will say one thing but do something else altogether. Hence, the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: "What you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say."

Every politician has a (Karl Rove/Rahm Emmanuel/David Axelrod/Andrew Young) sleaze ball figure who does the dirty work. In the aforementioned examples, it's a case of sinister savvy. In Ciara Matthews case, it's far less flattering. She is being used by Walker because she's a ditzy dope who is reveling in the attention. What a dumb broad.

Wow! What a response! Not only did these guys (and gals?) miss the fact that the letter to the governor was written by Callen Harty, they don't seem to think there is any problem with Walker's communications director going completely off message. She has learned not to communicate directly with non-politicos (like me) who occasionally respond to her tweets.

I agree Ciara Matthews should be fired. But the longer she stays in place, the more obvious it is that the governor is not sincere.

the MoD motto:

If you don't have anything nice to say, you've identified a topic about which you are morally obligated to speak.Raise your hand if you're not afraid to ask a question.Raise your voice if you're not afraid of free speech.Raise some hell if you're not afraid to change the world.

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